


Goodbye Mitchell

by partiallykritikal



Category: Moxie (2021), Moxie - Jennifer Mathieu
Genre: Claudia thinks different, Gen, Good people doing good things for a good reason, Mentions of Car Accidents, Moxie (2021 Netflix Film), POV First Person, based on the film, but that doesn't mean she's wrong, mentions of rape/assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:20:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29892762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/partiallykritikal/pseuds/partiallykritikal
Summary: From Claudia's perspective, set after the movie.One-shot.
Kudos: 11





	Goodbye Mitchell

My method of advocacy isn’t the same as Vivian’s.

That isn’t to say that she’s wrong. Or that it doesn’t work. Or that it hasn’t changed Rockport High for the better, or that at least I hope it will.

But it’s not something I can do, and that’s okay too. I can’t be the typical white girl standing on a soapbox and shouting out that I should be expelled for starting a walk-out or vandalizing the school. For getting the principal’s favorite student in trouble.

Not that I don’t agree with her. Rockport High wasn’t a good place to go to school. And Mitchell needed to be stopped before he could hurt someone else.

It’s not like after the walk-out he went directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200. He had a talking-to and was sent home. Principal Shelly didn’t even want to refer it to the police. She was willing to take that stand against Moxie but was still going over the pros and cons of calling them about a rapist in her school. She still might do something more. Probably.

Mitchell’s social standing definitely hadn’t taken that big a fall. The football team, only shaken for a moment, was back to their typical feeling of smug invincibility. Two days since the walk-out and no real consequences yet. In the shadows wearing a black hoodie, across the street, I was watching them throw a house party. Getting drunk, yelling about Moxie, about feminist bitches and everything they were going to do to them. It was just talk, though. Probably.

If I were Vivian, I would start a protest. If I were Lucy, I would go straight to the school board, the superintendent, whoever would give me the time of day – and wear them down until they did, if they didn’t at first. But that’s not me.

It’s nearly three am. Any minute now, Mitchell will stagger out of the house, fumble his way into his car, and drive home. He’ll blow right through the stop signs and probably not slow down until he finally makes it off the freeway and back to his parent’s mansion. It’s what I watched him do last night. It’s what he’s done at parties in the past, although I wasn’t watching him closely back then.

He won’t make it home this time. He’s going to press the brake pedal as he comes off the highway and onto the cloverleaf. His brakes won’t slow his car down. There’s a pinhole leak in the brake lines, which has been slowly draining the brake fluid into the oil pan all night. He’ll crash into the concrete barrier at ten or twenty miles an hour over the speed limit. His cherry red 1995 Ford F-150 pickup truck wasn’t built for safety, and he’ll be killed on impact.

I’ll be home safely in bed by the time that happens, just like I was all along. The police will test his blood and find him well past drunk and on the way to alcohol poisoning. The truck will catch on fire and hide the evidence. There probably won’t even be an investigation, just another drunk teenager dead in a car accident going home from a party.

Vivian wouldn’t do this. Lucy wouldn’t either, and neither of them (nor anybody else) would expect it from me. I always knew Vivian better than she knew me, anyway. Principal Shelly will probably call it a “tragic accident” during morning announcements, Emma might get some closure, and the world will move on within a week. Kiera might even get that $10,000 scholarship after all.

This isn’t Vivian’s kind of advocacy, and it isn’t Lucy’s. But it is mine. And it works for me.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by "Goodbye Earl" by the Dixie Chicks


End file.
